The next day he had disappeared from the hotel. I set the agencies at my command to work, and learned without much difficulty that passages had been reserved for the false priest and a Sister of Mercy travelling under his protection, on board a Spanish steamer sailing from Cadiz to Havana.
Needless to add, I was on board the same steamer when she quitted her moorings and breasted the waves of the open sea. During the voyage I had many opportunities of watching Kehler and his companion, who were constantly together, holding long private conversations in retired corners of the vessel. The nun, who was presented to me as Sister Marie-Joseph, was a pale, delicate-looking girl of about twenty, with that abstracted look in her eyes which betokens a mind wavering between earnestness and hallucination.
Dimly, and through clouds of uncertainty, I began to perceive that Kehler had ransacked the convents of Madrid for a suitable instrument, and that he was hard at work hypnotising the unfortunate girl’s mind, so as to prepare it for any suggestion he might have to make.
Before we reached Cuba I contrived to speak to the Sister apart. I found her reserved and distrustful of a heretic, as she had evidently been told to consider me. On my satisfying her that I had been brought up a Catholic, she became slightly more communicative, and revealed a disposition singularly sincere and devoted, but almost morbid in its detestation of Protestantism. She betrayed a feeling of horror at the idea of American domination in the Catholic island of Cuba, and it was in vain that I represented to her the generous tolerance accorded to our religion in the United States.
I did not dare to ask her the subject of her conferences with Kehler. To have hinted at the Bavarian’s true character would have been simply to forfeit her confidence in myself. I decided to reserve my efforts in this direction until our arrival in Havana, where I did not doubt that I should be able to find some responsible ecclesiastic who would undertake the investigation of Kehler’s antecedents.
In the meantime I could only wait and watch. I was painfully impressed by the steady growth of the false priest’s influence over his victim, who seemed at last to respond to his least word or gesture. I had before me the spectacle of a possible Teresa or Elizabeth being gradually transformed into a Ravaillac by the dexterous touches of a rascally police agent.
As soon as we entered the harbour Kehler and his companion got ready to disembark. I noticed that at this moment they were separated, the Sister going ashore by herself with a large basket trunk, while her protector followed at some distance behind.
They met again at the hotel, to which I had accompanied the man. By this time I had forced a certain degree of acquaintance on the couple, though I was unable to interrupt the intimacy of their private intercourse. I arranged to secure a room next to that of the Sister, and I observed with some surprise that Herr Kehler was lodged in another wing of the building.
By a coincidence we found the hotel full of naval officers from the Maine, who had chosen it for their headquarters while on shore. Instead of disconcerting Kehler, this circumstance appeared to give him every satisfaction.
He went out of his way to show civility to the Americans, and rapidly became intimate with several of them. Sister Marie-Joseph, on the other hand, held sullenly aloof, scarcely able to repress some signs of the abhorrence which the sight of the heretics inspired.